Environments

Strateos currently provides 2 execution environments for experimentation. The key difference between the environments is the regulation of the atmospheric contaminants inside the workcell. Environment is set at the project level and a project can have its BSL status upgraded at your choosing, note that Strateos reserves the right to upgrade the BSL status of a project if the runs within the project meet the specified criteria for classification. All runs that are executed within a project will inherit the environment class of the parent project. The environment of a run or project will be indicated by the appearance of an environment flag next to the project or run name. An example is given below:

BSL-1 Environment

BSL-1 (Biosafety Level 1) environments are open to the environment of the workcell bay. The environment is regulated for temperature and air flow, however the atmosphere is not filtered nor any pressure differential created. This environment is suitable for Synthetic Biology, biochemistry, molecular cloning, bacterial studies, providing contamination is controlled through antibiotic selection. BSL-2 materials and containers and mammalian cell culture is not permitted in the BSL-1 environment.

BSL-2 Environment

BSL-2 environments are regulated with HEPA filters and a consistent negative pressure generated within the workcell. These precautions ensure a consistent intake and updraft of clean air into the workcell, minimizing contamination events and hazard release.

Currently, work enforced in BSL-2 environments includes any runs that use BSL-2 class materials, containers that have been in contact with BSL-2 categorized materials and any mammalian cell culture work.

Note to developers: Due to the higher performance nature of BSL-2 environments, there is an additional charge for executing experiments.

Setting your Environment

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BSL upgrades are one-way

Once a project has been upgraded to a higher BSL level, it cannot be downgraded to a lower BSL level.

Environment can be set from the settings page for the project, this can be accessed by clicking the grey cog in the top-right when viewing a project. To upgrade a project from BSL-1 to BSL-2 click the BSL-2 button.